Ranvier , 5 months ago

They can’t just put their foot down and say no more fossil fuels forever, all banned. He’s not a dictator. Biden admin has to work within the bounds of current law. If they just deny every approval application they’ll get sued and the courts will force an approval.

“The current economic and environmental analyses the Energy Department uses to evaluate LNG projects don’t adequately account for potential cost hikes for American consumers and manufacturers or the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, the White House said.”

One of the parts of this process is considering costs. The Biden admin has been changing old formulas made under the department of energy under Trump that calculate costs of greenhouse gas emissions but vastly under count the damages. The delay allows them to re calculate these costs with better formulas, and maybe even block them altogether. If they just say no and block it without following the normal regulatory process though, courts will overturn them in a second. Just like a ton of those Turmp regulations that made a bunch of his base happy but were shortly overturned for violating the regulations proceess.

Not disagreeing with continuing to keep up the pressure on the admin and lawmakers, but with the powers the executive does have this is how you would start if blocking it for good was your goal. Calculate the impact costs as so expensive (and rightfully so) so that any rejections will look very justified and can stand up in court.